REFLECTING ON THE FUTURE OF ORTHODOXY IN AMERICA

by Archbishop PETER

(Winter, 1997)

On the threshold of the third millennium it is legitimate to
reflect on the past of Orthodoxy in North America and to think about the future.
Taking a systematic survey of the past is certainly outside the scope of our
article. Several studies have been made on this subject but since there is an
historical continuity, it would be impossible to speak of the future without
alluding to the events which have actually led to the present situation. Some
very significant data have to be taken into consideration!

Originally, the Orthodox Faith was implanted in America among
the indigenous population of Alaska by missionaries coming from Russia and in
1840 a diocese was established, its first bishop, now canonized was St.
Innocent. The next stage began when this diocese extended its pastoral care to
the immigrants of various nationalities settled in California. An event which
can be considered as a decisive landmark in the development of Orthodoxy in
America was the return to their ancestral Faith of a large segment of Uniates in
the last decade of the nineteenth century.

In 1890 the name of the diocese was changed and became the
"Diocese of the Aleutian Islands and North America." The ruling bishop
and the clergy had to care for the increasing number of immigrants coming from
Eastern Europe and the Middle East. In that context, Archimandrite Raphael
Hawaweeny, an Arab by birth, was elevated to the Episcopal rank by the Ruling
Synod of St. Petersburg and put in charge as auxiliary bishop in order to care
for the Arab speaking communities of the diocese (1904). We can notice that at
that time both the ecclesiological requirements of territorial unity and the
need of taking into account the linguistic and cultural diversity were
harmoniously conciliated. Then Archbishop Tikhon, later Patriarch of Moscow,
envisioned for the near future the establishment of a status of autocephaly for
the Church of America encompassing of course all the Orthodox of the country.
Soon after, however, a series of partly connected events modified profoundly the
ecclesiastical situation. As a consequence of the Bolshevik Revolution the
relations between the Church in Russia and America were perturbed and the
material support from Russia was terminated. During the decades following the
end of the first World War, the immigration of Orthodox continued under the
influence of political and economic factors. Among those new immigrants, there
was a majority of Greeks. Although now in regression, this afflux of Orthodox
Greeks has thenceforth never ceased and they constitute the largest and the most
socially prominent component among Orthodox Christians in the United States.

Albeit highly damaging, the process of jurisdictional
fragmentation was almost inevitable, more especially as we should bear in mind
that before the First World War such a trend had begun to surface among some
ethnic groups. The extension of Communist domination over Eastern Europe after
the Second World War led to more jurisdictional fragmentation in America because
of differences of opinions about the possibility of maintaining allegiance to
Mother Churches in countries dominated by Communism. The establishment of the
"Standing Conference of Canonical Bishops of the Americas" (SCOBA) in
1960 was a positive endeavor. It brought about a framework for inter-Orthodox
consultation in order to formulate some common answers on social issues and it
contributed to manifesting a certain consensus in dialogue with other
Confessions.

In 1970 the Orthodox Church in America, which had been known as
the Russian Metropolia, regularized its canonical relation with the Moscow
Patriarchate and was granted the status of autocephaly. The official document (Tomos)
contained some strictures in order to avoid the idea that the jurisdictional
authority exercised by other Patriarchates was irregular (13 Section 3).
However, the granting of autocephaly to the OCA raised some negative reactions
especially in Constantinople, but in America eventually it did not fundamentally
alter the inter-Orthodox relations.

With respect to the implementation of canonical unity in
America, we should notice a change in the attitude of the Metropolia,
subsequently the OCA, before and after the sixties. When in the thirties a
substantial group of Uniats from Carpatho-Russian origin approached the
Metropolia to be accepted into its bosom under the condition it constitute a
diocesan unit, the episcopate of the Metropolia rejected this request precisely
because of that condition. In the late fifties Metropolitan Andrei, head of the
Bulgarian diocese in America, petitioned to be received into the Metropolia with
the same provision, his request was not accepted, in all likelihood for the same
reason. However, soon thereafter the Metropolia did not stick to such a
canonical strictness. Thus Romanians in 1960, Albanians in 1971 and Bulgarians
in 1976 were united to the Metropolia--OCA and were allowed to keep their own
diocesan structures. This organizational model is roughly similar, albeit not
completely identical, to that followed by the See of Constantinople for America.

As we have seen, the model of Church administration responding
to the demand of Orthodox Ecclesiology was broken toward the very beginning of
the twenties as a direct result of the new political order in Russia but, as we
have noted above, other factors were also at work. Be that as it may, the
aspiration to canonical unity never completely disappeared and recently has been
clearly affirmed by an overwhelming majority of the episcopate in America
(1994). Nevertheless, it would not be realistic to ignore that reconstituting
full canonical order comes against serious difficulties, and here we can only
mention some of them. In the hierarchy, clergy and people, we can sometimes find
the opinion that, by and large, the present status quo is satisfying since the
unity of Faith is absolutely preserved and sacramental communion is the usual
practice. Furthermore, the following argument is frequently put forward: The
existing situation allows the possibility to maintain a close spiritual and, in
some cases material, connection with the Mother Churches overseas. This
situation, too, preserves the specific cultural and national heritage of various
jurisdictional groups.

Actually, those concerns deserve consideration, but the premises
of this reasoning are questionable. One cannot reduce Orthodoxy to a mere
attribute of national identities; moreover, one cannot ignore the fact that a
larger majority of the faithful in our country have reached a high level of
acculturation. Must they be regarded as second-class Orthodox? We should,
however, clearly state that canonical unity does not at all entail a cultural
leveling which could imply either the renunciation of cultural legacy or of
legitimate variants in ritual traditions. We do not expect that the full
regularization of the proper canonical order required by Orthodox Ecclesiology
can be achieved immediately, but this process comprehending several steps cannot
be continuously postponed. In a future article, we shall suggest some realistic
ways to attain the ultimate goal.